


Flash Fics Collection

by Adrenalineshots



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: AU Verse, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood and Gore, British Malcolm, Drowning, Episode 01X08, Episode 01x19 spoilers, Episode 01x20 spoilers, Episode tag 'Time Alone', Explosions, F/M, Family Games, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Humor, Hurt Malcolm Bright, Hurt/Comfort, I might have forgotten a few, Language, Malcolm/Edrisa Au, Mention of Gore, Mr. David - Freeform, Musician Gil, Musician Malcolm, Nobody is Dead, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Please Forgive me, Sick Malcolm Bright, Torture, Violence, Vivisection, badass Malcolm, dancing Malcolm, episode 1x11 Au, episode tag 'Eye of the needle', hurt Gil Arroyo, shamelessly flashing of underwear, shy malcolm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 66
Words: 18,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23567485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrenalineshots/pseuds/Adrenalineshots
Summary: One more joining in. This will be a series of very short stories, each prompted by one word provided by the Grand Master of all promps, Jameena. Some will be silly, some will be funny, some will be downright painful, but all of them will center around Malcolm Bright.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 63
Collections: Flash Fics - PSON Whump Discord





	1. Dip

The sun was beating down mercilessly against the back of his neck, making beads of sweat surface to his skin in tiny little pearls of water, just before gravity took hold of them and carried them racing down, to collect against the fabric of his black shirt.

Malcolm raised his gaze up, squinting at the bright sun, eyes almost colorless when faced with the intense light.

“Tell me again... why are we doing this?”

Sitting across from him, Gil looked disgustingly comfortable under his sand-colored hat, decorated with colorful fishing decoys. He smiled, bashing in the warmth of the sun, before adjusting his hold on the fishing rod. “Because it's relaxing,” he deadpanned. “And you needed relaxing.”

Bright rolled his eyes, wedging his own fishing rod against the edge of two seats in the flimsy rental boat that they both currently occupied. He was slowly cooking under the long sleeves of his dark shirt, dress pants and leather shoes. “How is this relaxing to anyone?” he asked the world in general, adding a pout just for Gil's benefit.

“Just give it a try, will ya?”

Throwing the older man a stinky look, the profiler kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks before standing up and start working on his belt.

Arroyo raised an eyebrow who vanished under his hat. “And exactly what the hell are you doing now?”

“I'm hot,” Malcolm replied from underneath his shirt, currently stuck midday between his nose and the top of his messy hair. “I'm going in for a dip in the river.”

“There might be piranhas in there,” Gil warned him.

The boat rocked dangerously to the side as Malcolm jumped out, the splashing sound outside telling Gil that his warning had fallen on deaf ears.

“Good!” Malcolm eventually replied as he surface back up. “At least that way I'll catch something!”


	2. Hip

The day had been long and grueling, the latest in a week filled with long and grueling days. But they had managed to catch the killer and everyone on the team could finally rest peacefully, knowing that dawn wouldn't be carrying with it a new victim.

The local bar seemed like the obvious choice to unwind a little bit before heading home to sleep.

Two beers in and even Malcolm was beginning to finally relax. Three beers and at the end of a continuous string of Vodka shots that JT kept pressing into his hand, he was _really_ relaxed. Later, Bright would deny that he was plastered and place the blame of everything on Queen.

After all, who could resist the beat of ' _Another one bites the dust_ '?

It started with his right hip, then the left, right, left, and from there he just took off, completely forgetting that the rest of the team was still there. And that there would be a _tomorrow_.

By the end of the song, he was standing on top of one the tables after an impressive leap from the ground, rocking to the sound of music and the sheers of the rest of the bar patrons.

“Did you know he used to do ballet?” Gil whispered to JT by his side. Because he really wanted to know just how badly red in the face Bright could get the following day.

Besides, Dani was the one filming it on her phone.


	3. Rip

Edrisa was just finishing up her paperwork for the day when she heard the loud crash that came from somewhere outside her office.

She looked around, only then realizing that she was all alone in there. Well, her and all the dead bodies, but it was not like one of them was going to get up and defend her- God, she hoped not...

Frantically looking around for anything that she could use to defend herself, her eyes landed on the coffee mug sitting on her desk, currently containing nothing but two broken pencils and a pen she was pretty sure no longer worked.

She grabbed the piece of flimsy ceramic and bravely advanced towards the sound, not shaking like a leaf, at all. The clatter had ebbed away into muffled little noises; all that she could hear now was the rustling of clothes and the occasional curse.

She opened the door carefully, fully prepared to give nothing less than a nasty concussion to whoever stood on the other side.

What she saw, was not exactly a threat. Well, not physically, that was. He was kind of a threat on her heart. “Bright?”

The profiler looked up sheepishly from the mess he had made as he, apparently tripped his way down the stairs and landed on a table with several metallic trays. “Hum... Hi?”

Edrisa couldn't help but smile, even if her hand still held that mug like it was a sledgehammer. He looked utterly adorable, with his hair all tussled up and half of his shirt untucked and that bruise flourishing on his forehead... “Gosh! Are you hurt? Here... let me help you with that.”

Finally realizing that she was still holding on to the mug, Edrisa put it down and offered the profiler a hand, helping him to his feet. He looked _mostly_ okay.

“I'm fine, thanks,” he let her know with a smile, turning to look at the stairs like they might attack him again.

Edrisa tried to hid the giggle that was dying to burst free from her chest. Malcolm's pants had, apparently, not fared as well as him. At least, not if you took in account the huge rip in the fabric that was supposed to be covering his ass.

“Calvin Klein,” she muttered, finally setting her giggle free, unable to resist any longer. “Very classy,” she added with a wink.


	4. Pin

People tended to look at him and simply assume that he was a player, a regular Don Juan. Young, rich guy, good looking, with a degree and all... anyone passing him in the street would just pin him for having all the women that he could ever want at the snap of his fingers.

They couldn't be more wrong.

You know that dry feeling that you get in your mouth when you've talked non-stop for two hours straight or when the bad guy pulls out a gun and you suddenly remember that you left yours on a table, inside the FBI building, months ago? It was _that_ feeling, on steroids, that Malcolm got whenever he found himself face to face with a woman that struck his fancy.

And mind you, that didn't happen often. Getting struck, by a woman rather than a fist, that is, not the dry-mouth on steroids part. The point was...when he did, he would froze.

He'd just froze. And most times, the woman would walk away... and never know.


	5. Tinker

“You're absolutely sure you can do this?”

Malcolm raised an eyebrow at JT, carefully rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt and making a show of stretching his arms in front of his chest. “What makes you say that?” he asked, finally picking up a small tool from the box laying by his side.

“Because last time it went _oh-so-stelar_?” Gil reminded him sourly.

“Because you have a nasty hand tremor?” JT pointed out, unhelpfully.

Malcolm gave them a look. “Have you no trust in me? I _know_ what I'm doing... it's not like I'm just tinkering with it,” the younger man said defensively, before his eyes focused on the job at hand. “If I can just...” he voiced carefully, as if his words would cause everything to fall apart. His whole posture was one of concentration, barely breathing and moving ever so slowly.

“Careful...” JT coached, his voice so close it tickled the tip of the profiler's pointy ears.

“JT,” Malcolm whispered, turning his gaze to the side and finding the detective three inches away.

“Yeah?”

“...personal space?”

“Sorry man... just... be _careful_.”

Malcolm smiled confidently. “Come on.. when have I ever not been carefu-”

The buzzer sounded loudly at the same time that the cartoonish patient's red nose lit up.

“Damn it, Malcolm!” Gil let out. “You said you could reach the funny bone!”

Dani and Tally gave each other a sonorous high five. “Sorry fellas, we win!”


	6. Quench

The killer had a thirst for blood. Unfortunately for the victims, he was quite literal about it.

They had found three victims already, each hanging from the ceiling of different derelict apartments in different abandoned buildings, all drained-dry of every drop of blood and with matching teeth marks on both sides of their necks.

“Obviously the killer isn't actually _sucking_ the blood from their carotid arteries,” Edrisa pointed out, pushing her glasses up her nose. “The puncture marks are from the needles he used and, since we found no blood at the crime scenes, we must assume that he's collecting the blood somewhere and taking it with him.”

“To do what? _Drink_?” JT asked, his face contorting in disgust. He looked one breath away from throwing up.

“To quench his desire for human blood,” Malcolm pointed rather theatrically, like he was quoting some book. All he was missing was the Transylvanian accent. “Apparently, our killer believes he's a vampire.”

“Dude... that's just wrong!” JT let out with a snarl. It was bad enough that the guy was a killer, there was no need for him to be a weirdo too.


	7. Just Stay Put

JUST-STAY-PUT!

Which in Bright-language, obviously translated as ' _please, do join us in chasing an armed killer, who has a thing for killing cops, all of this while you're wearing absolutely no body armor and carrying no damn gun of your own!_ '

Gil was going to put him on a goddamn leash! As soon as the kid stopped bleeding all over his hands. “I thought I told you to stay outside,” he let out, the words carrying absolutely no bite under all the worry. “You gotta start listening to me...”

Malcolm's breath hitched inside his chest, blood bubbling to his lips, coloring red his otherwise pale face. He was trying for words, but those seemed to be trapped inside his chest. Along with the bullet he had taken for Gil.

His eyes, however, those damn expressive eyes of his... they were speaking so loud, shouting the whole story.

“Yeah, I know kiddo... you figured out there was a second shooter,” Gil spoke for him, earning a small, grateful nod. “You couldn't let us walk into a trap without doing something.”

Malcolm relaxed a bit in his arms, an lonely tear escaping the corner his eyes as he blinked heavily, bashing in the knowledge that the message had come across even though he lacked the ability to speak.

“Just breath, okay?” Gil begged him. “We can work on your understanding of English later... for now, I just need you to breath. Stay with me, kid... stay with me.”


	8. Abandoned

_Abandon all hope_ _, ye who enter here._

The line was from Dante's Inferno, but it applied all too well to the place where they found themselves.

Most people imagined Hell as a place filled with blood, gore and the screams of the damned as they suffer for eternity.

No one ever considered the smell. That particular putrid odor born out of the singular mix of blood and human dejects, seasoned with the whiff of sweat and fear that clanged to the skin like cellophane.

Or the fact that silence can be so much more terrifying than any scream.

The killer had just abandoned him there, a spoiled brat leaving behind a broken toy that was no longer useful, losing all interest now that he couldn't play with it anymore.

His chest was moving, spastic intakes of air that sounded as painful as they looked. Outside of that small, glorious fact, he looked terrifyingly similar to the rest of the victims that they had found. Clothes in tethers, covered in his own filth and blood, eyes vacant and devoid of light. Broken.

“Damn it, kid...” 


	9. Kaboom

“Kaboom.”

Dani looked at him like the profiler had grown an extra head. “What do you mean ' _Kaboom'_?”

Malcolm offered her the piece of paper, so that the detective could read for herself. In his hands, there was a the yellow sticky-note with the word Kaboom written in bright green. It was kind of offensive on the eyes.

Dani's eyes widened, her hands dropping from the steering wheel like its touch burned. “Does that mean that there's a... _bomb_ in the car?!” she whispered, as if sound would trigger the damn thing. For all she knew, it just might.

Malcolm pursed his lips, considering the possibility with the same degree of thoughtfulness that one would have choosing lunch at McDonalds. Now too, the wrong choice could have dire consequences.

“We can't really discard the possibility,” he confessed, annoyingly calm. “I mean, the killer has used explosives before.”

The detective sitting by his side gulped, reaching for her phone. She dropped it just as quickly, remembering that it could triggered the bomb just as easily as anything else. _Shit._

They couldn't leave the car.

They couldn't start the car.

They couldn't call for help.

And they had no idea if the bomb, if it existed, was on a timer.

“We're screwed,” Dani surmised, sinking against the driver seat.

Malcolm nodded, doing the same, adding a pout to the mix. “You think _WE're_ screwed?” he let out annoyed and slightly pained huff. “I've been needing to use the bathroom since before we left the precinct...”


	10. Backfire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one can be read as major charater's death, so, if that's not your thing, skip this one ;)

The plan was to use the cult leader's girlfriend as bait, lure him out and make the arrest with as minimal casualties as possible. She would be wearing a wire _and_ a tracker device in her purse, and all she had to do was get him out in the open.

JT was posing as a hotdog vendor across the street, Dani was sitting at the coffee shop and Gil had found himself a taxi to drive. It was so far from his LeMans...

Malcolm was safely tucked inside the apartment building, two stories up from where the cult leader lived, coaching their bait's answers and monitoring the teams progress.

That was all he needed to do. Talk the into a mic and look at screens.

Gil had decided to take no risks. The kid's left hand was still in a cast and Malcolm refused -out of spite, really- to retake his gun certification course, so there was no way that the lieutenant was authorizing the profiler's physical presence in that op, other than sitting his ass in a surveillance room.

The plan worked wonderfully well... until it backfired monumentally.

The cult leader was, unfortunately, not a moron and had obviously left behind instructions to be followed in case of his demise. He had promptly followed the woman out in the street, walked with her into the coffee shop where Dani sat and, after she got him to confess to having planted the bomb at the church, had been swiftly arrested in the middle of the street without a single bystander being placed at risk.

Before getting inside the police car, the man had smiled and looked up at his apartment. Gave a short nod. Closed his eyes.

And then half the building exploded.

Gil's heart plummet to the ground. The building. Where he had placed Malcolm.

To keep him safe.


	11. Quaint

Eve had no idea what to expect. None of this was going as she expected.

First, there had been Jessica. In her mind, she had imagined someone who was closer to a Cruella de Vil kind of character than an actual person, because who else could have been married to someone as vile as the Surgeon other than a demon similar to him?

She had been wrong. Jessica Whitly was a powerful woman, a force of Nature to be reckon with.. a good person. A role model to her.

And then she had met her son. Malcolm Whitly had burst into that dinning room like a tidal wave of vibrant blue eyes and boyish charm and she had found herself falling again for a Whitly.

She had no idea what a date with him meant. She had a suspicion that he didn't either.

She imagined something quaint, old fashioned, ostentatious rich. Maybe dinner with a private chef inside some pompous yacht in the middle of the Hudson.

She had dressed expecting that. And he had dressed to match her, because he had felt guilty for not giving her any clue and, guessing what she would assume about him, had worn his best tuxedo.

Instead of the chef and yacht, he had taken her to some pizza place that he loved and playing pool with his friends.

And she had fallen just a bit harder.


	12. Misleading

JT was a no nonsense kind of guy. He liked his pizza to be crusty and free of anchovies, his coffee black and the people he worked with to be sane.

He figured it wasn't asking for much.

The skinny, white pasty-faced guy that Gil showed up with at the crime scene, going a mile per second like some crazy energize bunny who'd a fresh battery shoved up his ass? He had just rubbed him all kinds of wrong. Like _serial-killer_ kind of wrong.

So, yeah, what if he was good at what he did? It wasn't like it was rocket science or anything. For all he knew, the guy was just throwing wild guesses in the wind, seeing if some of that spaghetti he spun stuck to the wall.

It was all misleading, of course.

Because, yeah, Malcolm Bright still was a skinny, white pasty-faced guy, but he had also been the one who had put his life on the line to save Dani. And that was A-OK in the Tarmel book.

And then Dani had to go and tell him him who the kid's dad was. So, okay, Bright had a couple of things going for him, but JT _knew_ there had to be something wrong with that guy!


	13. Howl

JT cringed as the mustached men grabbed Malcolm by his chained wrists and just _yanked_ him into the room. Like a sack of potatoes.

“What you doing, man? This has nothing to do with him... he wasn't even there when your brother was arrested, so y-”

“Shut the fuck up!” the taller guy said, backhanding JT into silence. “I'm not interested in your opinion, just on you making a phone call.”

The detective snarled, spitting out blood on the cement floor from his split lip. But he remained silent.

Malcolm was silent was well, which was profoundly strange from him, until JT realized that the profiler wasn't even awake.

“So, lemme explain to you how this is gonna play,” the tall guy said, nodding to mustache guy. “I...”

The other guy threw the end of Malcolm's wrists chain over a steel beam near the roof, the metal clanging loudly in the large room.

“...want...”

He pulled on the chain one more time, yanking Malcolm's unconscious form to his knees, like some macabre rag doll.

“...my brother...”

Another pull and the profiler was on his feet, head dropping to the side, tousled hair hiding his face from view.

“...out!”

One more pull and the profiler was airborne, his feet loosing all contact with the floor.

Malcolm came to with an howl. But not even his gut-wrenching scream managed to mask the sound of both his shoulders snapping out of their sockets with a sickening crack.

JT swore right there and then that he was breaking every teeth in that tall guy's mouth. Soon.


	14. You're going to have to speak up

Dani paused and stared. Blinked. Stared again.

It was the middle of the night, she was way too sleepy, but nope! she was not seeing things. That was definitely Malcolm Bright, profiler extraordinaire, complete failure at feeding himself, tormented genius with _way_ too many sharp weapons serving as decoration and general pain in her ass.

And who was currently standing behind some fancy jewelry's shop window, knee high in glittering diamonds, looking at her expectantly.

“You called?” she asked, trying very hard and failing miserably at hiding her smirk. She didn't even care how he had gotten himself stuck in there.

“YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO SPEAK UP!” he screamed at her from the other side of the obviously reinforced glass.

Dani shook her head, pointing at her hear. No, she hadn't heard a thing, but Malcolm always worded everything he said so carefully that it was pretty easy to read his lips. “Sorry, can't hear a thing, man... did you just say that you want me call Gil? JT?”

“NO!” Malcolm screamed, obviously doing some lip reading of his own.

“You got it, buddy!” She nodded enthusiastically. “Calling them right now!”

Malcolm sat on his ass, disturbing jewelry pieces that were probably too expensive for her to even look at. “I HATE YOU!” he mouthed.

Dani winked at him and pulled up her phone.


	15. XOX

“What's the matter, Bright? You look spooked,” Dani asked.

They were having a quiet day, which was both refreshing and annoying, because quiet meant working on the backload of paperwork that she had accumulated from the past two cases. Unfortunately for Dani and her boring duty, her spot had the perfect view of Malcolm's desk, the precinct's number one cause of distractions.

Right now, he was looking extra pale under the fluorescent lights, his eyes bulging out of their sockets as he stared at something on his phone.

“Malcolm? Talk to me,” she asked again, his silence making her seriously concerned now. The detective got up from her desk, paperwork be damned, and walked the short distance to him.

“I think...” he said, swallowing hard. “I think I just got a death threat from an unknown number.”

Dani's heart sped up at the words. A threat on one of them was a threat on all. “What does it say?” she asked, even as she made a grab for the phone in his hand.

On the screen, the message was very short: XOX

She frowned. Looked at him. Looked back at the phone. Resisted the urge to smack him in the head. Did it anyway. “That means hugs and kisses, you idiot!”

It was Bright's turn to blink in confusion. “You sure? Looks like a dead guy's face to me.”

She rolled her eyes. “That's because you have murder-brains,” she pointed out. In her hand, the phone vibrated with a new message. Ainsley, alerting him that she had changed numbers and that the previous message had been from her. “There you go... case solved!”

Malcolm had the grace to blush in embarrassment. “That is a weird way to express love and care,” he still pointed out.

“You're weird,” Dani let out, walking back to her desk. The paperwork was still there, waiting for her. Damn.


	16. Preen

He spent most of his day preening in front of that tiny mirror that had come with his house.

To be fair, he was a handsome fellow on his own, didn't require much grooming, but never the less, he preened as much as he could. There was always a little here that could be improved, a little bit there that looked better in another angle. And a male needed to look his best, or else how would he ever get himself a lady? 

And this was on any regular day, because when it came that dreadful time of the year when every thing just started falling off? Good grief! It just took him twice the time to get his feathers in order on those days! 

“Morning, Sunshine!” the two legged Feeder called out to him. “Sleep well?” 

Sleep? _Sleep?!!_ Did he think that a bird like him woke up every morning looking this glorious with putting any work to it? _Really_... humans! Evolved species my feathery ass!


	17. Vacant

The killer had injected him with _something_.

They knew that much because the syringe was right there, plunger pushed all the way down, the tip of the needle still kissing the skin surface of Malcolm's neck. All that was left behind was a pinprick of blood and that vacant blue gaze.

“Bright! Bright, can you hear me?” Gil shouted, grabbing both of his shoulders and resisting the urge to shake hard, to waggle him out of that stupor.

The profiler's body was like jello under his touch, boneless limbs dragging across the floor, head bobbing aimlessly as he was moved. But Malcolm's eyes were open, tears forming at the corners even as Gil talked to him, begged him to show a sign of life. He was just staring at nothing, unmovable. Trapped.

Gil reached under Malcolm's arms and pulled him against his chest, the young man's head resting against the crook of the lieutenant's neck, silent tears soaking the fabric of his coat.

They had imagined that this might have been the killer's MO, chemically trapping the victims inside their bodies, robbing them of any choice, but keeping them aware. Alive and awake. Hopelessly helpless.

“We're here now, Malcolm” Gil assured him, even though it felt like he was talking to a corpse. “You're gonna be fine. You're gonna be just fine.”


	18. Underestimate

He hadn't be chasing a lead on his own. He hadn't run off to chase someone without calling for backup. He wasn't even on _duty_.

Malcolm had just stepped into the bank to solve an issue with his card. Walked in line, just like everyone else. Pulled out his phone when he became bored of waiting, just like everyone else.

The robbers bursted through the main entrance and unleashed a volt of rapid fire into the ceiling, effectively sending everyone inside screaming and running for cover. “NO BODY MOVES!”

Later he would think ' _Who the hell still goes around robbing banks these days?_ ' and ' _Hostages situation never end well_ ' and also ' _Damn, that the second phone I break this week!_ '

But all of that would come later. At the time, Malcolm had just... reacted.

Standing closer to the guy who had fired into the ceiling, it was easy enough to grab the automatic riffle from the man's gloved hands and use the end part to smash his nose in.

By the time the other two realized that the source of the sudden wail was one of their own, it was already too late to do something about it.

Malcolm aimed at the first one from behind the broken nosed robber, effortlessly putting a bullet in his brain. Not wanting to present an easy target for the remaining armed man, the profiler threw himself on the floor and rolled over, stopping just long enough to take a breath, aim and shoot.

It was all over in less than 30 seconds.

When the team arrived at the scene, they were stunned into silence. JT looked at the two dead men on the floor and the third one being carried away in a stretcher before his eyes landed on the profiler. He nodded in silent approval. “Clearly, there's been some serious underestimation going on here.”


	19. Rictus

The reaction was the same for anyone looking at the victim for the first time.

Gil had seen a lot of corpses throughout his career, but this one was certainly a first. “Is he... smiling?” he had to ask because... well, that was what the victim appeared to be doing. Adding that to the fact that there was no visible wounds and the man looked mostly untouched, it truly looked like he was sitting there, smirking at them.

“It's called Risus Sardonicus, or Rictus grin,” Edrisa supplied with a grin of her own. “Isn't it amazing? The victim's facial muscles just locked in that position at time of death.”

“Amazing's not the word I was gonna use,” JT deadpanned, looking sideways at the victim. “It's spooky as hell.”

Malcolm had a smile to match the medical examiner. “What's your best guess?” he called out to her. “Strychnine or water dropwort poisoning?”

Edrisa simply lit up, basking in the knowledge that someone at least knew what she was talking about.

“My guess is that the Joker got to him,” Dani offered before Edrisa could ever answer. “We should call Batman.”


	20. Don't look down

“Okay... whatever you do-”

“If you're going to say 'don't look down' I swear I'm gonna kick your ass so hard you'll get a concussion!”

“Fine...” Malcolm conceded. “I was just going to point out that moving your head down causes the ear crystals to tilt and might make you dizzy, causing you to lose your balance...”

“How is that not the same?” JT growled, arms extended by his side as he tried to maintain his precarious balance on top of a ridiculously small ledge. “Just... keep quiet, and let me concentrate.”

The silence lasted less than 5 seconds. “Careful wi-”

“What did I just say?” the detective pointed out with an angry glare.

“I know that, but you really should look o-”

“That's it! I'm gonna quit this stupid exercise and whoop your as-” JT managed to let out in quick a volley before he stepped on some bird droppings and fell hard to the ground. Luckily for him, the ground was three feet away and the play ground floor was covered in sand.

“I was going to say,” Malcolm preened, standing over the fallen man. “Watch out for the bird poo.”


	21. Exsanguinate

The killer claimed to be emulating the Surgeon, but this had been the one thing that Martin Whitly claimed he had never done. And Malcolm was inclined to believe him.

This was too sick even for his father. This was using a life saving machine to rob someone of their existence. Using science as an excuse for pure evilness.

The Surgeon had never killed a single one of his patients on his operating table, had always kept the killer and the savior as two different creatures in worlds apart. It wasn't due to ethics or a sense of moral, for he had neither; he simply wanted to best in every thing that he did. Patient's dying by his hands was not the professional reputation that Dr. Whitly craved.

This killer had, somehow, gotten his hands on an extra corporal circulation machine and used it to kill five people. One tube surgically inserted in the victim's aorta, another in their cava vein, flipped a switch on the machine... they had been exsanguinate in about three minutes. Feeling every second of it, watching as their blood raced way from their bodies to be collected in some plastic reservoir. Never returning to their bodies, as it was supposed to.

Malcolm could feel bile building inside his mouth.

His father was a monster. But he wasn't the only one.


	22. Nerve

The cab driver leaned over his steering wheel, staring outside in disbelief. “You gotta have some nerve...”

Sure enough, there was some guy leaning over the front of his cab, practically lying over it, like it was some frigging bed on wheels in the middle of the street. “Hey, buddy, find some where else to sleep!,” he shouted, head popping through the driver's window. “I trying to work over here!”

The man looked up at that, intense blue eyes blinking in slow motion even in the dark street. He didn't look like your average junkie, what with the fancy suite and expensive coat, but this was New York, so you never know...

“... he—lp...”

“Do I look like a social worker, pal?” the cab driver hissed. Still, the guy wasn't frigging moving from the hood his car and he had just washed the thing two days ago. “Alright, that's it, pal!” he warned, stepping out from the car and banging the door for effect. “Can't say I didn't warn ya...”

That's when he saw the blood.

“Shit! SHIT! Man... is that all yours?”

The guy never answered, finally losing his contest with gravity and sliding to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

The cab driver looked around, unsure what to do. There was practically no one in the street at that time, everyone tucked safely in their beds. He fished out his phone, dialing 911. “Hold on, man... I'm getting you some help,” he let out in a rush, not really sure if the guy was still conscious or not. “Just... don't fucking die on my cab, okay?”

A bloody hand snuck out, grabbed onto the edge of his jeans. The cab driver looked down, resisting the urge to kick the gory hand away.

“Ple—ease... call Gil.”


	23. Xacto pen

“So, what you want to do is...” Edrisa pointed out carefully, her arms circling around his back so that she could grab his right wrist and guide his movements correctly. He smelled like vanilla and strawberries, a combination of flavors that was making her mouth water. “... press the end point of the x-acto pen right on the edge of the duct tape so that when you cut into the box...”

Malcolm twisted to the side in her embrace, his eyes landing on hers for a few seconds before falling to her lips. “It's hot in here. Too hot... do you mind if I take off my jacket?” he asked, ever so politely.

He was right, it was awfully hot in there. “No.. I mean, yes, of course,” she let out. “Take off whatever you want.”

Malcolm shrugged off his jacket and toss it over the table. The white shirt underneath clung to his chest with sweat and Edrisa licked her lips, still tasting that strawberry scent of his.

“Still too hot,” he complained, fanning himself with his hand. “Would you mind terribly if I took off my shirt too?”

The medical examiner was rendered speechless. Had she just heard what she thought she had heard?

“Edrisa?” he called to her.

“EDRISA!”

The small woman jumped in the air, her glasses skewed across her face, a hint of drool at the corner of her lips. “I'm awake!”


	24. Cable

Malcolm sat on the edge of the bed, heels of his hands shoved in his eyes, trying to wake himself up. For once! Just for once he had managed to get some sleep, and it had to happen on the one day he needed to be up early enough to open the door to the cable guy coming to fix his TV.

By the time the doorbell rang (eight to ten AM his ass!) he had time to finish his yoga, take a shower, ignore breakfast, feed Sunshine, clean his cage and look at the photos from their latest case. A killer who enjoyed cutting off peoples' faces and wearing them as masks.

“Mr. Bright?” the guy dressed in overalls asked as Malcolm opened the door.

“Yeah... come right in,” Malcolm said, stepping aside and pointing to the back of his loft. “TV and all the wire stuff is back there.”

The guy, Johnson according to his name-tag, took a couple of steps in before he stopped dead on his tracks, eyes growing wide and terrified as he took in the large weapon's connection, the gory photos scattered across the coffee table and the stiletto stuck in the large plasma TV.

Malcolm looked up from what he was doing in the kitchen when he heard the door banging shut. “Damn... that's the third one this week!”


	25. Whimper

John walked back into the room and Malcolm couldn't help himself. He whimpered.

His eyes landed on the axe, his mind supplying him the feared image of a gory, bloody blade until he blinked and realized that he was imagining things. The blade was clean. John hadn't used the axe. Yet.

“Forgot something,” he said, crunching down in front of the profiler. “Wouldn't be wanting you to do somethin' stupid to yourself to try and come stop me,” John offered, sounding genuinely concerned about Malcolm's well-being. “So...”

Malcolm's heart jumped to his mouth, beating crazily as he watched the large man grab his bag of tools and taking something from inside.

When he turned, John was holding onto a large hammer. “This will hurt a little,” he warned, swinging the hammer above his head and dropping it in the same motion.

Malcolm howled in pain as the hammer struck first one ankle, then the other. The world, thankfully, faded away after that.

“There...” John tossed the tool aside with a smirk. “When you awake up, it will all be over. Then you can thank me.”


	26. Absolution

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” Gil whispered as the wooden partition slid over, revealing the priest's silhouette on the other side.

“What brings you to the house of the Lord, my son?” an elderly voice prompted.

Gil licked at his lips, feeling his mouth suddenly dry. He wasn't eight years old anymore, being dragged to church by his Nanna and scared of the somber priests and the gloomy catholic mass. “I have perjured myself,” he confessed. “In my line of work, even outside of court, that is a crime.”

The priest paused, his head giving a gentle nod. “And what was the purpose of this lie?”

“To save someone I know,” Gil openly confessed. “Someone I love as if he were my son.”

They had tried to fool him, make him believe that Jessica had been the one stabbing Martin in that cell, but anyone who knew the woman for five minutes would see that as a blatant lie. She couldn't bring herself to squash a fly, much less shove a sharp instrument inside a person's chest.

Gil knew that Malcolm had been the one to stab his father. Even if Jessica hadn't been the only other option inside that room, just one look at the kid's eyes was all Gil needed to know without any doubt. Despite the fact that Dr. Whitly was a murderer, a monster, Bright had still been in absolute pain over the fact that he had stabbed his own father in the heart.

It had hurt, to know that the kid to look him straight in the eye and lied to his face, but Gil had let it slip. Had done the same in his official report.

But he couldn't bring himself to lie to himself. To God.

He told the priest everything, knowing that the other man would never betray his trust.

“Lying is never the right thing to do,” the priest let out. “But it sounds to me like you did it with good intentions in your heart... In the name of the Father, I absolve you, my son... if you manage to do the same.”

Gil crossed himself before leaving, his heart heavier than before. Like Malcolm and Jessica, Gil had failed to confess the worst part. Of how he wished he had been the one to stab Martin Whitly instead of Malcolm.


	27. Hacksaw

Malcolm stared at the display of instruments on top of the table and gulped. There were a variety of hammers, a chainsaw, several sizes and shapes of pliers, a hacksaw, a blowtorch, nails... the list went on forever.

“You _really_ don't need to do this,” he pleaded, looking around for anything that could help him escape. Already he could feel sweat pooling down at the small of his back, heat flooding his neck and face. “Look... I have money... there's gotta be options to this... less painful options.”

Gil gave him a look, no mercy showing in his eyes. “No,” he let out with steel determination. “We're doing this MY way... or we're not doing this at all.”

Malcolm looked at the mangled corpse of Gil's LeMans. There was no way the two of them would ever be able to fix it in the lieutenant's homemade garage. One call... one frigging phone call and he could have the best people in the business working on that car. But no, Gil wanted to it himself.

And had enlisted - _forced_ \- Malcolm to help him since, well, the biggest dent in the car bore the shape of the profiler's ass.

“Right then, pass me that chasing hammer,” Gil call out, hand extended as he waited for his tool.

Malcolm looked at the collection of hammers on display, absolutely no clue what kind of hammer that one was. “I hate you... “


	28. Inconspicuous

The pub was inconspicuous enough, a single door with a sign above. Anyone rushing by would blink and miss it completely.

They only saw it because they had been looking for it. Because Edrisa, strangely enough, knew someone who had talked to somebody and somehow, word had gotten out.

'Speakizzy' shined in neon red lights, casting the whole alley in a crimson glow. “You sure this is the right place?” Dani asked, looking uncertain of how many types of hepatitis she would get from touching the door handle to get inside.

Edrisa smiled. “Trust me! It's gonna be _totally_ worth it!”

So, they went inside. The place was remarkably nicer once they crossed the lobby, private booths in dark leather encased in warm, soft light, all pointing towards the stage.

The place was packing, condemning them to sit by the bar instead. They ordered beers all around and waited for the show to start, because that was what Edrisa had dragged them for.

As the lights dimmed even further, casting the place in complete darkness, a single spot light shinned on stage, revealing a man sitting in front of a grand piano.

“Shit! Is that...” JT let out, nearly spilling his drink all over the girls. “Is that the _boss_?”

“Yup,” Edrisa confirmed with a smug look. “Well, not _the_ Boss, because this place couldn't afford Bruce...”

“Damn! That's really Gil,” Dani whispered as the lieutenant launched head on into some classical music that she couldn't name, but was beautiful.

Midday through it, the soft melody was joined by another instrument, a lament of carefully stroked notes, as a violin joined Gil's piano.

The player was mostly hidden by the shadows of the stage, but as the music reach its climax, he advanced towards the light, right arm a blur of movement as his left hand fingers danced across the strings. The player had his eyes closed, face leaning against his instrument, completely lost in the music they were playing.

“SHIT!” JT let out louder than he had intended, causing a few heads to turn his way in silent disapproval. “Sorry,” he mouthed.

“Is that?” Dani asked in a more conspicuous way. “It can't be...!”

Edrisa beamed. “Yup,” she let out dreamingly, lost in the sight of Malcolm Bright, playing Beethoven on the violin.


	29. Malignant

The car ride was familiar by now. The streets nothing but a blur of the same houses and shops, corners and cars. Malcolm's mind drifted from what his eyes were absorbing, going to what awaited him instead. Preparing himself. Raising whatever shields he had left.

Gabrielle had called those visits 'malignant'.

It might have seemed like an over the top adjective, but she wasn't wrong. Like a invasive tumor, it infected every particle of Malcolm's life and changed it, made it worse, tinted everything with the dark shades of madness. And it spread.

It spread into his personality, into his work, into his day to day dealings. Into his mind.

Everything was tainted by the presence of Martin Whitly.

And yet, Malcolm couldn't bring himself to stop seeing him. His father.


	30. Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some heavy spoilers for episode 1X19 in this one. So, if you haven't seen it yet, skip this!

This isn't happening.

That is the only thought that Malcolm can process even as he is pressed against a wall and his picture is taken.

This can't be happening.

They order him to strip of his clothes and change into the beige uniform and white socks that they bring him.

Bright pauses for a moment, waiting for the guard to leave the room and close the door behind him, but it's clear from the sneer in the man's face that he will not be allowed that small amount of privacy.

He strips, red rising to his face, threatening to reach his eyes and it stings. He has been working with these people for months, and in the blink of an eye, they show no hesitation in treating him like a criminal. A dangerous one at that.

The new clothes are stiff and scratchy, too big for him. He feels like this is the biggest prank someone has ever pulled on him, and yet no one comes through the door, laughing and yelling 'gotcha!'

“Put a move on it!” the guard yells instead, shoving him through the door. There's a long corridor on the other side, rows of overcrowded cells on the right side, a bare tall wall on the left.

Malcolm feels trapped, and he's not even inside a cell yet.

He's not going to make it. This is just too much.

“Hey pretty boy!”

“Come to papa!”

“You're mine, little boy!”

Malcolm puts his head down and forces himself to not stop, to not look, to not cry.

He's not scared of them. He's not even scared of the ridiculous murder accusations against him. He's just sad that no one came to rescue him from this.

Because Eve's funeral is tomorrow and he will be dressed in beige, sitting on a cell. And he will fail another girl inside a box.


	31. Xenophobia

Blame it on the private schools. Or on that one BBC show about Sherlock Holmes that he liked to see... the fact was, Malcolm Bright could pull out a British accent like the man had been born under the Queen's roof itself.

“I gotta ask... you sure you wanna do this?” JT asked, for what felt like the hundredth time. He was the one more vocal about it, but the truth was, everyone on the team was uncomfortable with the whole idea.

The thing was, the guy they were trying to catch had a thing against foreigners, particularly British people. Some xenophobic crap about them coming to his doorstep, stealing his God given language and speaking it all wrong. The speech had inbred written all over it.

It was crazy on every damn level, but the fact was that that loony asshole was cutting off people's tongues and they needed to put an end to that.

Malcolm had volunteered after JT had completely brutalized the British accent for generations to come.

“Do not worry about it, ol'chap,” Malcolm let out in his most cheesy version of a seventies comedy. “I got this.”

“Fine,” JT grunted. “But just so we're clear... you call for us BEFORE he chops off your tongue, you got it?”


	32. Zero in

For someone tied up to a chair, with a black eye and bleeding from where he had bitten into his lip, Malcolm looked disturbingly at ease.

There were two of them, brothers. The oldest one seemed to be the one in control, the one with a clear passion for violence. Currently, he was waving around his gun, making a show of picking a place to put a bullet inside their prisoner. He had fired a few warning shots already, mostly mistreating the concrete floor, even though one bullet had come close enough for Malcolm to feel it graze the fabric of his shirt.

Bright had zeroed in on the youngest one instead. If there was any chance for him to get out of that mess with his limbs still attached and without sprouting any new holes, the kid was the answer.

Now, all he needed to do was win him over, convince him to betray his overbearing brother and set Malcolm free.

Should be easy enough. After all, if he truly wanted a challenge, he's prefer breaking into the LAPD files and finally finding out what JT stood for. Which he was going to try, sooner or later.

“Have I told you guys about my friend, Jedediah Titus?”


	33. Xiphoid process

The sun was sneaking in through the large windows, foretelling of a bright day to come. Edrisa turned away with a frown. She wasn't ready to face the day yet. She was much too comfortable in that warm bed, fine cotton sheets wrapped around her naked body and making her feel like she was sleeping on a fluffy cloud.

Blinking away the remains of sleep from her eyes, her gaze fell on the person occupying the other side of the large bed.

Despite the fact that sunlight was beaming down on his face, Malcolm was still asleep.

She took advantage of the fact to appreciate the sight to her heart's content. The gentle angle of his long neck, the stubbly, sharp chin, the manly eyebrows, the floppiness of his dark hair sitting against the white pillow.

His lips twisted into a smile, even though his eyes remained closed. “I can feel your eyes on me,” he whispered, voice husky from sleepiness.

Edrisa smiled against her pillow. “You know I love a good test subject,” she let out coyly. “I have a class later today... maybe I should bring you as a visual aid.”

Malcolm opened one eye, giving her a side glance just to gauge how serious she was about it. Seeing the playful look on her face, he relaxed against the mattress, stretching his arms as far as the restraints allowed in a lazy yawn. “And what's this class about?” he asked, trying to sound uninterested in whatever game she was playing.

“Thoracic anatomy,” she deadpanned, getting one arm up to support her head as she turned towards him with a energetic flip. “How the clavicles connect with the first indention of the manubrium,” she started lecturing as her finger traced Malcolm's collar bone from his arm to the dip at the bottom of his neck. “The manubrium angle and the body of the sternum,” she went on, her finger barely touching skin as she traced the valley between his pectoral muscles, leaving goosebumps behind. “The sharp edge of the xiphoid process,” she teased, feather like touches, knowing how ticklish Malcolm was in that particular area.

He squirmed under her touch, keeping himself from clicking the restrains off and allowing her complete control over his body. “Is this class _only_ on thoracic anatomy?” he asked, his cheeks flushed, all traces of sleep gone from his voice.

Edrisa licked her lips, a playful smile on her lips. “Well,” she whispered, her fingers ghosting across the hard edges of his abdominal muscles, tracing down his linea alba. “If the students show interest in the subject... I might extend my lesson further south.”


	34. Knock, knock

Malcolm pulled his knees closer to his chest, trying to retain some of the feeble warmth his body was producing. He had no idea how long he had been inside that box, or even if the people who had put him there were returning. He just knew that this was the last time he trusted an old lady.

He and Dani had split up to search the last two houses on their list. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, they had decided to each visit a house so they could return to the city before nightfall.

Bright had, apparently, picked the house with the crazy people. A sweet old lady had opened the house, smiled at him and the next thing he knew, something heavy had smashed against the back of his head.

Malcolm had woken inside a tight space, with no room to extend his legs or turn, lying on his side, wearing nothing but his underwear.

And it was freezing cold.

“Knock, knock!”

The pounding against the wooden box felt like thunder from the inside and Malcolm shivered against his will.

He was pretty sure that he could take out an old lady, but there was no telling how many accomplices she had or what their plans might be. As it were, Bright was pretty sure that he had already lost all sensibility in his legs, so kicking his way free was out of the equation.

The lid opened, suddenly flooding his dark world in light. Malcolm blinked, unable to stop the hands that reached in and pulled him up.

The grip under his arms was too strong to belong to a feeble old lady. When he manage to focus, the profiler found himself looking at the woman and what had to be her two sons. Two bear-looking men, over six feet tall and with arms that looked like tree trunks.

“Who's _there_?” he asked shyly, thinking that he could not be more screwed.

And then he saw the cauldron.


	35. Clank

Malcolm was still recovering from his chest infection, so the team had figured it was just easier to gather everything and simply take the case to the profiler's home, rather than watch him drag himself to the precinct, _again_ , only to be dragged back out to his house by either JT or Dani.

It was still early in the morning, so they had made an much necessary stop at the coffee shop to gather supplies -it was akin to an hallucination to expect Bright to have anything edible at home- and mounted up the stairs that led to the loft.

Gil was just pulling out his set of keys when they heard the first clack. Quickly followed by a second and third in quick succession and finalized by a yelp that was clearly from Malcolm.

The detectives looked at one another, JT resisting the urge to reach for his gun. Upstairs, the smacking continued, something flat and robust hitting a soft surface hard.

“Damn it! Stop that!” Malcolm yelled from the other side of the door.

The decision was made there and then. Whatever was happening inside the profiler's place, he was not consenting to it and it sounded way too violent to be legal.

The team burst through the flat's door, guns out, spreading around in a practiced move.

Inside, Malcolm turned his head from the couch, a frown on his face. “Good morning?”

Gil looked around, searching for the source of the violent sounds they had heard. “We-- we thought that--”

“Never mind what we thought,” JT let out. “What the hell is going on in here?”

Malcolm shrugged, pointing at the large windows. “Mother sent Luisa over... she's been spanking my carpet for the past ten minutes, _despite_ being told that it's not that dirty,” he explained with a roll of his eyes.

JT looked at Gil, silently asking his permission to strangle the profiler.

Gil was very tempted to say yes.


	36. Vouche

The teams had been the same for years now, with the occasional new addition when someone retired or got transferred into another precinct.

They gathered annually, all of NYPD precincts against each SWAT team in the city, each team fighting for the honor of being known as the best sharp shooters in the force.

JT had been a member of the team since almost the beginning, and so far they had lost _every_ single year. They always came close, but never close enough to bring the medal home.

When Dani had joined Gil's team, he had asked her to join the competition. He had seen Powell in the gun range, he knew she was good with her gun. The young detective, however, had declined the offer, claiming that there was so much testosterone in those competitions that she could almost feel herself growing a mustache.

This year... this year they were screwed. Wilson, their best marker on the team, was on his wedding leave, which left them one man short and several points behind.

“What about Bright?”

The words had come out of his mouth before he could actually think it through. For one, he had never seen the man shoot a gun, although JT was pretty sure that the profiler knew how to do that. Profiler's carried guns in the FBI, right? At least they did, in that one show...

“Your team's profiler?” Moss asked doubtfully. “Is he even old enough to be allowed a gun?” he snorted out, causing all the others to burst into a laugh.

JT was not amused. “I vouch for him,” he said in all seriousness. Damn those guys if he was just gonna sit there and watch them mock a member of his team. Besides, JT had a good feeling about this. Somehow, he knew that Bright could handle himself with a gun.


	37. Infectious

Whatever he was on, it was infectious. From inside his office, Gil could see the gathering of people around Bright in the bullpen, laughing hysterically at something he had just said.

A warm, fuzzy feeling spread through his chest, knowing how hard Malcolm struggled to fit in, how difficult it was for him to be accepted by others. To see his boy holding that kind of crowd and seeing everyone have such a good time was... just plain _wrong,_ Arroyo realized.

There was something not quiet right with that image and the warm, fuzzy feeling quickly melted into ice cubes on the Lieutenant's stomach.

He walked out of his office, casting a look at JT and Dani, both of whom also had inquisitive looks on their faces. And Gil could understand why. The reason why everyone was laughing was because Malcolm was telling... jokes.

“And—and do you know why dogs are such bad dancers?” he let out, his voice a bit too loud, his words coming out a bit faster than usual, which was saying something for him. “Because they have two left feet! Oh—Oh--- why did the picture was send to jail?”

“Bright... BRIGHT!” Gil called out, reaching out a hand to physically pull him away from his audience when Malcolm failed to comply.

“Gil! Do you know why the picture-”

“Stop,” the older man let out, putting an end to the endless stream of words. “What are you _doing_?”

Malcolm blinked, perhaps way too many times, his eyes slightly unfocused under the rapid moving eyelids. If Gil didn't knew better, he would swear that the kid was high. “Did you drain the whole coffee pot again?”

“COFFEE! What a lovely idea! I'm gonna gets us some! From that place in...you know!”

Gil had to actively pull Malcolm back to stop him from bouncing away, in search of some coffee shop in parts unknown. It was the flushed cheeks and the heat radiating from the back of his neck that alerted Gil to what was actually happening. “Kid... you're burning up!”

Malcolm frowned, raising a hand to his forehead. “No, I'm not,” he deadpanned. His glassy eyes, however, told a different story. “I _never_ get sick! Like... EVER!”

Gil sighed. “Dani-”

“Yeah, boss... I know,” the detective was already picking up her jacket. “Take him home and make sure he goes to bed.”


	38. Narrow

“Now, there is a narrow line between piercing skin and damaging the muscle that lays underneath, and we don't wan't to do that just yet,” the man explained patiently. The teenage boy by his side nodded, grabbing the scalpel from his father's hands, feeling its weight for a moment.

Gaining some measure of confidence, the teen moved closer to the metallic table where the body laid. He had seen dead people before, but this one was still alive. He could see the man's chest moving up and down under the white sheet. He looked up, gazing at the man, younger than his father. The gag stuffed inside the man's mouth prevented him from speaking, but his intense blue eyes were talkative enough. He was begging him not to do this, but somehow it didn't felt like he was begging for his life. No, he seemed more concerned about the boy than himself.

“Ignore him,” his father called to his attention, pulling on the restraints holding the man to the table. The blue eyes closed in pain as leather bit into skin and he grunted against his gag. “Pay attention to your lesson... now, where do we begin?”

The boy swallowed, closing his eyes to regain his concentration. “First incision is from the acromial edge of the clavicle to the tip of the manubrium,” he recited, pressing the sharp scalpel to the man's skin. As soon as the blade pierced in, blood flourished to the surface, running down to stain the white sheet.

“Very good,” the father encouraged, laying a hand over the teen's shoulder. “Now, do the other side, Malcolm.”


	39. E-mail

They had just finished processing Malcolm. A bag with his belongings sat on top of Gil's couch, looking pitiful and half empty.

Malcolm.

There was something seriously wrong with the world when he had to live through the day where he booked the kid he saw as his own son.

But they had had no other choice. He had had no other choice. As soon as the DNA results had hit the system, he had gotten The _e-mail_.

Straight from the top brass, who should not be working past midnight, but still had found the time to send in a text strongly suggesting that, if Malcolm Whitly was not put under arrest immediately, the action would be seen as an act of treason from Arroyo's and his team.

Gil wasn't sure what had stung more. The not-so-veiled threat on his team, or the fact that they had called Malcolm a Whitly.

The SWAT team hadn't been his idea, they had just _been_ there by the time they had arrived to Malcolm's place. The whole thing smelled of set up, but Gil's hands were tied.

The one thing he couldn't allow to happen was to be removed from that investigation.

And damn it all if he wasn't going to do his best to stop that from happening.


	40. Stay down

Jack gave a sideways glance as the metal door swung open. There he was, thinking that he was going to get the presidential suit all to himself, and the damn cops had to bring in another stinker body to ruin his night. It wasn't like this was his first time spending the night in jail, but he would appreciate some piece and quiet once in awhile.

The kid they dragged in was new to the ropes; he could guess that from taking just one look. Pristine jacket, fancy jeans, 200 dollars hair-cut.

Rich boy probably crashed his daddy's Porsche around some street lamp and would be out of there by morning, once the hungover had set in and the bail money had been settled.

“Hi,” the kid whispered, running a shaking hand over his hair.

Jack snorted. It wasn't like he was the violent type or something, to have the kid shaking in his boots like that. Definitely a newbie. “Whatever... I need my beauty sleep, so just shut the fuck up.”

Beauty sleep, however, was not on the menu for the evening. The kid was a talker. In his sleep. “This has _gotta_ count as police brutality,” Jack muttered to himself, rolling over the too slim bench that he was using as a bed.

The kid was sitting against the wall, doing some weird dance in his sleep. Like he was possessed, or something.

“Shit! Hey! You put a crazy one in here! Hey! Open this door!”

Just then, the kid jumped from his spot and moved on him. He was scrawny, but Jack was taking no chances. “Stay down! Stay the fuck down or I'm... I'm gonna yell some more!”

“Wha—What?” the kid let out, eyes opened but hardly seeing anything.

Jack moved back as far as he could go. “Last time I'm letting the cops arrest me,” he muttered to himself again. “Last _fucking_ time...”


	41. My kid is in there

Gil pushed through the sea of uniforms like they were nothing but weeds. His badge flashed in the sirens' lights, his rank making sure that no one dared to stop him until he reached his destination.

“Who's the officer in charge?” he demanded as soon as he reached the front of the commotion.

A uniform, younger than him, stepped up to him, looking like he had more arrogance than experience on his belt. “That would be me, Lieutenant.”

Gil gaze at his name-tag. He took a deep breath, knowing that losing his temper would lead him nowhere. “Sargent Monroe, did you just ordered a tactical invasion on a federal building filled with hundreds of hostages and a bomb threat?”

“With all due respect, sir,” the kid spat. Gil had never heard the word ' _sir_ ' being attached to so little respect. “It's a damn prison riot. We need to get this under control as quickly as possible, no matter the cost. Its the guards' lives we should be concerned about.”

Gil bit his lip, reminding himself that it was not nice to punch idiots, no matter how good it felt. “So, because they are prisoners, we should have no regard for their safety, for their lives, is that what you're saying?”

The kid snorted, spat on the ground. “I'm just saying that they brought this on themselves and I won't lose any sleep if some of them don't make it out alive.”

“MY KID IS IN THERE, YOU IDIOT!” Gil exploded, all pretense of calm just leaking out through the seams. “Now, stand the heck down and let someone who actually knows what they're doing deal with this!”


	42. Listless

It was one thing to listen to his father explain how bones interacted with each other inside the human chest, it was another to _feel_ them grinding against each other as Paul Lazar pressed the turnstile harder, deeper, making it impossible for Malcolm to breath.

Any minute now, he was certain that his ribs were going to start popping, one by one, like balloons at a party. It hurt, and yet pushing those words out of his mouth had been more painful. “I'm my father's son.”

His vision was starting to fade, lungs unable to expand as they laid trapped between those metal bars. Malcolm barely felt it as the killer sneaked a phone inside his pocket. All he could think of was taking a breathe, getting some answers.

But neither of those seemed to be in Paul Lazar's plans.

The pressure grew impossibly harder and Malcolm screamed as he felt one of his ribs give under the strain.

He fell listless to the floor, his lips pressed against the dirt, inhaling as deep as he could, desperate for oxygen even if it came laced with sewer water. At a distance, Malcolm could hear Paul's footsteps, unhurried, confident that he wouldn't be followed. In complete control.

Bright struggled to raise his head from the puddle of water. Even that small movement sent fire spiraling out of control throughout his chest. The walk back to street level seemed like an impossible task at the moment, so he just laid there, content to take small breaths and let the pain wash away.

Paul Lazar wasn't done with him yet. He still had time.


	43. Don't touch me!

Malcolm dragged himself out of the room. The world was wavering around him, colors switching from too bright to black and white in a fast and dizzying sequence.

He was aware that he was bleeding, but he couldn't bring himself to do much more than shuffle forward, one foot in front of the other, hands extended in front of him, pushing away phantom enemies that kept creeping out from nowhere and attacking him.

“Bright!”

Dani's voice echoed inside his head, the name bringing warmth to his out of control heart, even if he couldn't quite put a face to the feeling.

His knees hit the floor, his view of the world shifting wildly, faster than he could keep up with. Everything went grey again.

There were hands on his face. A cold touch, warm feeling, he could almost melt into it... “NO! Don't touch me!” he screamed. “Please, don't touch me...”

There had been something in the lab, something that had exploded in his face, something that Malcolm was pretty sure would hurt anyone touching him as much as it hurt him.

He fell down, curling on his side. Tried to remember. It was important that he remember, so that Dani would stop trying to touch him, stopped telling him that it was okay.

“Arsenic,” he whispered, the name finally pushing through the noise inside his head. “It was arsenic... you can't touch me,” he let out. He could almost see her now, a gentle angel with a halo of curly brown hair, standing above him. “Please, don't touch me Dani.”


	44. Thankless

He walked into his locker room, mechanically pealing back his outer layers as he dressed for work. Some of his colleagues showed up already dressed in their uniform, carrying it from home and taking it back with them when the day was over.

Not him.

He couldn't bring this shit home with him. It was just clothes, he knew that, but still, they carried the stench of all the crazy shit he had to see and hear every day.

It was just a job, a thankless job at that, but he had been doing it for so long that he could no longer remember what his life had been like before the Whitlys had become a part of it.

He tucked his shirt inside, adjusted the name tag on his chest and walked out of the locker room. At the end of the hall, stood the red room where he spent most of his days. On some days it felt like he was serving time too, just the same as Martin Whitly.

Some days it got so weird that no one would believe him even if he opened his mouth to tell. Which he wouldn't. Because he wasn't crazy. He just happened to work in a place where everyone else was. Crazy.

“Good morning, Mr. David!” Martin greeted him annoyingly cheerfully. “You're looking particularly dashing today!” he went on, ignoring the guard's silence, as he usually did.

“There's something different about you today... no, don't say it... lemme guess,” the Surgeon went on, enjoying the sound of his own voice. “I know! You've got a different hair style!”

Thankless and underpaid. He definitely needed a raise to deal with that shit.


	45. Dread

Malcolm mounted the steps that led to his loft with something he had never associated with his home before: dread.

Even in the gloomy staircase, he could see the bright yellow of the crime scene tape across his door.

Visions of the night before assaulted his mind, making him stagger against the wall. Seeing Eve, looking at the same time etherial and terrifying, knowing that his hallucinations were the only remaining place where he could now see her, talk to her...

He had been in a dark place then, unable to deal with everything that was happening, unable to make his heart stop aching so badly that it stole his breath away.

The police, breaking down his door and storming inside his house, had been an almost welcome reprieve. Seeing Gil, JT and Dani amongst them, had not.

Now, as he pushed his door open, Malcolm had no idea what he would find inside. He knew what police usually did to suspects houses, he knew how carelessly his things had been searched, how thoroughly his private life had been violated.

As he walked in, Bright had not expected to see the semblance of normalcy and order inside his home that he found. Nor did he expected to find Gil, waiting for him.

Malcolm's faith in his team, in his friends, had been somewhat shaken by their actions the previous night. But now, listening to Gil urging him to escape, to break the law to save himself, his faith was slowly being restored.

Gil believed him. And Gil's warm arms around him were a hell of a start in making that dreadful feeling go away.


	46. Hoarse

“He's awake,” the nurse informed, gently nudging them inside.

The room was dim lighted, but it was still all too easy to see how terribly bad Malcolm looked. Local precinct uniforms had answered the 911 call that Jessica had placed, and by the time they had reached the Whitlys' house, the ambulances had already left. John had already been booked and the only ones left inside the house had been other cops and Jessica's house keeper.

Gil, Dani and JT hadn't known how bad it was until they had reached the hospital and watched the ever composed Mrs. Whitly, completely crumbled like wet noodles in Gil's arms, sobbing into his chest, begging him to make everything alright.

That's when they learned about the stabbing. And the broken hand.

Malcolm's sheets were pure white. He still gave them a run for their money. “Hey, guys,” he let out. His voice was hoarse, like he had accidentally swallowed a glass filled with sand. No intubation had been necessary for his surgery, the doctor had assured them, which meant that there could be only one other reason why his voice was destroyed like that. Screaming.

“Me-merry C'rist'mas,” he added with a faint smile, giving them a thumbs up with the hand that wasn't clunked with plaster. He closed his eyes tiredly, sinking deeper into his pillow.

John was a blabbering mess, making it impossible to get a coherent word out of him. They really needed to get a statement from Malcolm as soon as possible, but it was clear from the sound of his voice and the effort it took just to voice those three little words, that Bright was in no condition to do that now.

“We just wanted to make sure that you were okay, kiddo,” Gil finally whispered, his voice hoarse for a whole different set of reasons. “Get some sleep... we'll be here when you wake up.”


	47. Glup, glup

Malcolm startled awake as water touched his feet. Cold, ice water.

The feeling soon spread to the whole bottom surface of his body, forcing the reality of the situation into light. He had bound and gagged, laying on his back inside a large bathtub, with the killer above him, dropping gallon after gallon of water on him. Glup, glup, glup...

Bright's naked feet skittered and slipped, unable to find a solid grip on the ceramic underneath him, useless to give him the leverage he needed to sit up. His hands, tied together in front of him, didn't give him enough reach for either side. He was trapped.

He mumbled a silent argument against the piece of cloth inside his mouth. Robbed of his most trusted weapon, his voice, Malcolm couldn't call for help, he couldn't even argument with the killer, find out what were his reasons to drown every one of his victims, why he felt he had do this.

The only though that occupied his mind as the water reached his chin was that Gil was right. He should have waited for backup.

There was no point in pleading or begging for mercy with his eyes. That he could do, but the killer wouldn't listen. He wouldn't understand the concept.

His breath hitched and Malcolm sucked in as much oxygen through his nose as he could as the water covered his gagged mouth.

This was it.

There was no miraculous rescue, there was no afterwards.

Malcolm refused to close his eyes as the water completely submerged his head, filling his nostrils, tickling his brain into giving up, into letting go.

His lungs were screaming after just a few seconds, bubbles rising slowly from his nose. Whatever oxygen he had left, ignited inside his chest, burning him from within.

Glup.

Glup.

Had the gag not been in his mouth, Malcolm was sure he would have opened it already, trying to beat the odds, trying to filter some kind of breath through the water, filter the O out of the H2, be a fish.

The world dimmed. His nose clogged with the onslaught of water.

Malcolm gave up and closed his eyes seconds before the door exploded from the outside.


	48. Latchkey child

Malcolm arrived at the crime scene late.

He had been forced to take three weeks off after a... somewhat unfortunate collision between his right arm and a suspect's bullet. It had been nothing but a graze, really, but the doctors had insisted on his wearing a sling for at least three weeks and Gil had insisted -threatened- to lend him to traffic devision if he dared to show up his face for work before those weeks were over.

The case seemed to be a simple murder-suicide, but Malcolm was sick of being home and would've showed up if the case had been nothing more than a couple of missing socks.

JT was kneeling on one knee on the floor, looking like he was about to propose someone. Only, instead of Tally, there was a little kid in front of him.

Tommy Hinds, eight years old, a latchkey child and currently their only eyewitness.

Malcolm was about to step inside the house where the bodies were, when he spotted Edrisa. “Hi, Edrissa,” he called out, cheerfully. He had missed the way she looked and greeted him, like he was special and someone good. He needed the reminder on occasion.

“Hi, Brig-- Holy SHIT!” she let out, one hand flying to cover her mouth. “What is -that- under your nose?”

Malcolm frowned. While he usually opted for the subtle presence of stubble on his jaw, three weeks without proper use of his right hand had somewhat limited his grooming abilities.

“I believe it's called 'puberty',” Dani pitched in, barely hiding a smirk. She ended up giving up entirely, flat out laughing in his face. “Glad to have you back, Magnum PI,” she managed to let out in between giggles. Edrisa couldn't help but join her.

Bright pursed his lips, which only made the women laugh harder. It made his facial 'hair' look like it was wiggling its way across his face, trying to escape. 

Gil was not laughing when he moved to their side, looking less than pleased at their poor conduct display. “Do I need to remind you that two people died inside this house?” he hissed at his detective and medical examiner, usually two of the most efficient and professional women he knew. “Malcolm, I thought you were only coming back tomor-- what is that?” he let out, squinting his eyes to see better. “Can you wipe it clean?” the Lieutenant suggested, bitting on his lower lip to stop himself from joining Edrisa and Dani. After all, he had to maintain some form of authority.

“Everyone's a comedian,” Malcolm let out with an eye roll. “Can we please ignore this” he said, waving in the general vicinity of his nose, “and move on to the case?”

Gil looked between him and the house, then back at the street. “Sorry, kid, no can do,” he let out. “But I do have a razor in my car...”

“Why would I want--?” Malcolm asked, looking utterly confused.

Gil gave him a look. “Do you really want JT to see that?”

Bright's eyes widened on his face, dread stealing all color from his cheeks. If Edrisa, Dani and Gil were bad, JT was going to be much, much worse. He would never hear the end of it. There would be memes... “Lead the way!


	49. Obey

It had been his fault, really. He had been over confident, blind in his eagerness to catch the killer and had missed the one little detail that had messed everything up. He trusted the profile and completely forgot about the outliners.

Yes, the killer was a sadistic narcissist. That didn't mean he couldn't have a partner.

Malcolm was used to failure, despite what people believed about him. He was _okay_ with failure, just as long as he was the only one being screwed.

The problem this time was that he had managed to drag Gil into his mess and they had both ended up captured.

The knife was glued to his one free hand, the other chained to the wall. The killers had laughed as they gave him the semi-permeant attachment, getting out of his reach as soon as the glue had dried.

The only one he could reach was Gil, chained to the same wall as he.

“I said _stab him_!” the man yelled again, growing bored of Malcolm's hesitation.

“Obey! Or he eats lead instead,” the other one added, waving the gun in her hand.

A couple, bonded by bloodlust. There weren't many of those.

“I can't...” Malcolm whispered. His hand was shaking so hard that all he could hear was the rattle of his chains. They sounded like snakes, ready to strike.

“Sure you can,” Gil, sounding so calm that it _hurt_ , called to him. His left eye was almost close shut and his lip broken from fighting their captors, but that didn't stop him from smiling at Malcolm. “I'll be fine.”

Bright closed his eyes, willing his hand to steady, to obey him. As he pushed the blade forward, he couldn't help but wonder what did fate had against him.

After all, it was the second time he was forced by circumstances to stab a father.


	50. Methodic

There is comfort to be taken in repetition, routine, in methodically following the same order of actions, the same sequence of events, every single day.

His started with music, a long playlist of upbeat songs that Ainsley had helped him pick up. Gil had snuck in a few of his favorites as well.

After getting rid of restrains, mouth guards and shaking off all remnants of whatever horror had plagued him during the night, Malcolm greeted Sunshine and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. He always woke up feeling like he's spent the night walking through the desert, parched and tired.

Yoga came next. In there too he had specific order to his meditation, always the same, almost for a full hour, some days more.

Shower.

Getting dressed.

Shoes.

Coffee.

Day in and day out, Malcolm's morning routine didn't changed much, and he liked it just like that. It was the one thing he could control during his days, never knowing which case might pop up, what sort of trouble he would get into later. It was the only thing he could control about his nights as well, knowing that there was a safe routine waiting for him on the other side of the nightmare.

Spending the night in jail, arrested for suspected murder of Eve's killer, meant that there had been no music to wake up to. Just some random guy, yelling at him to sit down.

And just like that, his method to sanity had been shattered.


	51. Abuse of authority. Belittle. Cold

“Breathe for me.”

_No._

“Come on, you can do this... you've been doing this your whole life.”

_Go away. I'm cold and I'm tired._

“If you don't start using your chest muscles, we'll have no choice but to put back on the ventilator, Malcolm.”

_That's an abuse of authority, and you know it... whoever you are._

“There you go! That wasn't so hard, was it?”

_What do you know about hard, with that sweet, encouraging voice, talking to someone who can't even answer you back because they have a damn tube down their throat?!_

“There, there... I can see that you're angry, but you need to relax,” the therapist offered with a smile.

_Screw you!_

“Now you're just being rude,” the gentle woman warned with a warm twinkle in her eyes.

_Damn! How did she know that? Is she a mind reader?_

“No, I can't read your mind,” she said, completely proving his point despite her words. “You just have really expressive eyes, that's all. Besides, I hear you're a sort of mind reader as well, aren't you, Mr. Profiler?”

_Please... do not belittle a very distinct science of human behavior analysis._

“Okay, sure... it's more than mind reading,” she agreed with his eye roll. “But still, it's somewhat what I do too. I read people, when they can't really express themselves.”

_Read this: I want to be left alone!_

“I can see that you've had enough of this for one day,” she said, pulling out her gloves. “There's a bunch of people outside, waiting to see you. Do you want to?”

_No!_

“Thought so too! Lovely man like you shouldn't be alone in a hospital bed! I'll send them right in!”

_I hate you!_

“See you tomorrow, love!”


	52. Are you ready? Karma. Probe

This was Karma. Had to be! It was payback for all those times he had made fun of Ainsley for watching that _stupid_ TV show.

How else could he explain the melon head, bald, gray being with shark eyes that now stood above him? Wearing a face mask?!

“Just relax, Mr. Mulder, this won't hurt a bit,” the being said, without moving his mouth.

At least, Malcolm thought he didn't move his mouth, but who could tell behind the pink mask? Also, he was _assuming_ it was a he based solemnly on the deep voice, because it was Ken-doll city down bellow. Smooth as... well as hairless head. Which he had too.

“My name is Malcolm, not Mulder” he hissed. “I told you already!”

“That you have,” the alien said, actually sounding slightly miffed. “Now, do not move. Are you ready for this?”

Which was the same as yelling MOVE!! to Malcolm. He tried to raise his arms, only to find them strapped tightly to his sides, the same thing with his legs. “LET ME GO!”

“Please, try to relax or I'll be forced to use a sedative,” the alien explained, holding a long, thin, metallic instrument in his gloved hand. His fingers were freakishly long, a fact that Malcolm decided to share with his abductor. “Yes, you've mentioned it before, on your last visit.”

_Last visit_? Oh my God! How many times had they abducted him before, probing his body for... science? “Stay away from me, you... you...YOU!”

“Mr. Bright,” the alien sighed, taking a step back. “Do you want me to fix your chipped tooth or not?”

_Chipped tooth_? “You're not an alien?” Malcolm ventured hopefully.

The alien sighed again. “Too much gas, Eleanor... I told you to be more careful!” he said to someone above Malcolm's head.


	53. Relish. Dark. Nightmare

Sweat beaded against his face, drops drawing closer together, joining forces before racing down his cheeks, pooling at the base of his neck.

His head turned, first to one side, then the other, frantic movements that dislodged most of the moisture that had gathered there. Hidden by his hair, more sweat gathered its way to the surface, salt water lingering for just a moment before soaking the dark trends.

Malcolm moaned against the mouth guard, his back arching against the mattress, naked chest catching the moonlight coming shyly through the window to touch his glistening skin.

His arms were tense by his side, struggling against the leather restrains, hands closed into fists as he fought invisible enemies.

The nightmare had him tight in its grasp, relentlessly ridding wave after wave of pure horror. Malcolm screamed, the sound muffled by the plastic gag, horror dissolving into whimpering, whimpering smoking into defeat. 

The moon relished the sight. And shined on in the darkness of space.


	54. Treacherous. Violate. Drown

It was a treacherous piece of road. The sign they had just passed said as much. Still, JT couldn't afford to slow down or even consider just how many traffic laws he was currently violating. “Just keep putting pressure on it, will ya?”

By his side, Malcolm nodded, blood bubbling against his lips. Or perhaps his head just bobbed to the flow of the car's current speed. JT figured that the profiler wasn't paying that much attention to him anyway, because his hand was laying flat against the seat, instead of holding the improvised bandage against his stomach. The detective picked up the slack, using his free hand to keep pressure on the wound.

The guy who had shot at them had just been waiting for them to get out of the car to let lead fly out. Unfortunately for Malcolm, he had been the first one out of the car. The bullet had hit him right bellow the heart, before JT had a chance to put the guy down.

Malcolm gurgled, and chocked, a sickening noise that made it sound like he was drowning. More blood flourish on his lips, trickling down the side of his mouth. “Come on, man! Just a few more minutes, okay? Hold on a just a few more minutes, please!”

He was gasping for air, veins bulging on his neck. JT looked at the road, seeing the first signs of civilization. They were almost there. “Come on... I promise you i?ll even tell you my name, okay? Keep on breathing for a few more minutes, and I'm telling you what the JT stands for, deal?”


	55. Lake. Grill

It was the annual police summer meeting and, for some unforeseen reason, Gil had insisted he attended.

Despite the fact that he was not a police officer.

Despite the fact that he was barely on speaking terms with less than 10% of the people there.

Despite the fact that it was 86 degrees in the shade and Malcolm was positively turning into a well-cooked lobster.

“Enjoying yourself?” Dani asked with a smirk, planting herself by his side, on the river bank. She extended her hand, plastic cup filled with ice cold tea.“Peace offering.”

“Thanks,” Malcolm accepted, drinking the whole thing in one go. “Gil?”

“Showing the younglings how to work a grill,” Dani pointed out with a smile. “JT is guarding the burgers with his life...they better have something edible ready soon, or he's tackling the raw meat.” 

“Yuck!”

“How're you feeling?” she asked with a degree of concern. “You're looking kind of flustered.”

Malcolm puffed, leaning back against the soft grass. The sun attacked him as soon as he looked up. “It's kind of hot, if you haven't noticed.”

In her summer dress, Dani looked disgustingly fresh and at ease, the river breeze blowing her soft curls away from her long neck. “You could just take off your jacket, you know?” she suggested.

“Never!”


	56. Ransom. Cracked. Vivisection

“Gil-”

Jessica's voice was faint and broken, like she was struggling to breathe. “Jess...what's wrong?”

“Gil—someone dropped a package. I opened it-- there was blood, Gil! They have him,” she let out, bursting into tears. “They have my baby boy!”

“Don't move! I'm coming right over!”

When they reached the Whitly's place, Gil, Dani and JT were dragging a whole police task force behind them. The techs set up shop around every mobile device and computer inside the house, while Edrisa took the package for herself.

The box had already been cracked opened, so she merely placed her gloved hand inside and pulled the content out. At first glance, it looked like a dead fish. It smelled like dead fish.

“What the hell is that?!” Dani let out, one hand covering her mouth and nose.

Edrisa pulled it closer to her nose, taking a whiff. JT gagged at a distance. “I think...I think this is someone's appendix,” she concluded. “Why do you think who ever sent this has Bright?”

Jessica was sitting on the couch, glass of bourbon in her hand shaking so hard it was already spilling over. “They sent a ransom note,” she blurted out, pointing towards the table.

Gil picked up the photograph, nearly dropping it when he saw its contents. Malcolm, strapped to a table, as someone cut into him. He was looking straight at the camera, eyes opened and terrified. Under the picture there was a demand for one million dollars, or there would be another piece of Malcolm in the mail the next day. “They cut it out of him...while he was awake!” he said, bile rising up his throat. 

“Vivisection,” Edrisa whispered, part awe, part terror. “That's nasty...usually they sent an ear or a finger... but these guys went straight for the bowels..”

“Edrisa!” JT called out, pulling the woman out from her wondering mind. “Can we be sure that this belongs to Bright? Can't it all be a bluff?”

They all stared at the piece of death tissue. Even if it was, they couldn't take a chance. They needed to find Malcolm in the next 24 hours.


	57. Zoinks. Queasy. X marks the spot

Malcolm knew he was dreaming... there was no other plausible explanation in the realm of, you know, sane people.

  
  


Because standing right in front of him were none other than Fred, Velma, Daphne and Shaggy. Only... Fred looked less blond and lot more like JT, which was scary as hell because Tarmel did not look happy in a sweater and with an orange handkerchief around his neck.

  
  


And Daphne had dark curly hair and a scowl on her face. Now that he thought about it, she kind of looked like Dani, if Dani ever wore a pink headband to tame her curls.

  
  


Shaggy...oh, God! Shaggy was definitely his father, waving his hand at him like he was the only one aware of the nonsense that was happening.

  
  


Velma was Edrisa... or Edrisa was Velma. It was very hard to pinpoint where one ended and the other begun.

  
  


From what he remembered of the cartoon, there was only one character missing.

  
  


Malcolm looked down at himself. Long, brown paws, shaggy hair, waggling tail.

  
  


“ZOINKS!” Martin -Shaggy- let out, looking at Malcolm. “Son, how come you're a dog?” he asked, surprised.

  
  


“I believe the explanation for that rest on the fact that he is currently sitting on that X!” Velma proclaim, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Also, I would like to point out that I find Scooby a very handsome boy,” she added with a blush.

  
  


“X MARKS THE SPOT!” Dani yelled out, suddenly realizing how obvious that was and looking pissed at herself. “You should move, there's no telling when an anvil might drop,” she warned, looking up.

  
  


Malcolm followed her gaze. Sure enough, there was a large anvil currently making its way towards his head. He stood, frozen in place. His last coherent thought was that he really wished there had been time for a Scooby snack...

  
  


“Malcolm...MALCOM!” Gil's voice filled his ears, poking at his brain. “You back with us, kid?” he asked, concerned. “That was quite the knock on the head you got!”

  
  


The profiler opened his eyes, feeling queasy and half fearing that he was going to see the characters of Scooby-Doo all over again. But JT was JT (thankfully!) and Dani was back to herself, and Martin was gone and Edrisa...Edrisa was still Velma, but that was normal enough.

  
  



	58. TOXIC, REJECT, JEALOUSY

There was a new detective on the squad. He was younger than JT, perhaps a year older than Dani. And wanted in on _The_ team.

  
  


Everyone knew that no one got on Lieutenant Arroyo's team unless A- you were at the top of your game and B- he wanted you there.

  
  


The rules of admission on the cool kids table seemed odd and not quite defined for the young detective. He understood JT's presence, after all the man was a war veteran, a hero even before joining the force. And his police record was pristine, worthy of jealousy.

  
  


He didn't understand the other two.

  
  


One was an ex-coke head. Everyone in the department knew about Daniella Powell, the proverbial cautionary tale about how toxic undercover work could get. If you asked him, getting addicted to cocaine while on the job proved only that she was too weak for working as a detective, or even a beat cop.

  
  


The way he saw it, there was only one reason why either her or the freak were in the Lieutenant's team rather than him: one of them was warming the old man's bed, that was certain.

  
  


He didn't even knew where to start on the freak. There was absolutely no reason why someone with his genetics and with a murder accusation on his back should ever be in the elite team of the 16  th  precinct. The guy was unstable, son of a serial killer and with a sister on trail for murder. Where did he get off telling them how killers thought and acted? That alone was proof that he was one.

  
  


The detective felt rejected and he did not liked the taste of rejection.

  
  


“What you scowling at there?” JT's voice sounded from behind, startling him. “Is there something on Bright's nose or what?”

  
  


He realized he had been staring at the profiler across the room. JT, being the good detective that he was, had caught him. He needed to be more careful.

  
  


After all, he had plans.

  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  



	59. ABRASIVE, BEGGING, OVERKILL

** The car toppled over exactly three times before it came to a sudden stop on the asphalt, wheels up, spinning in the air. **

** Malcolm came to with a cough, his lungs trying to claw their way out of his chest. Oxygen, that stupid thing that he needed to live, was mixed with something abrasive in the air, burning all the way down every time he breathed in. “G-Gil?” **

** More coughing, the pain increasing each time his rib cage expanded. There was something pressing him down, crushing against his chest. Malcolm looked up, seeing a red drop falling upwards. **

** Took him a full minute to realize that he was hanging upside down, strapped to his seat. “Gil?” he called out again. The air was filled with black smoke, making it impossible to see anything past his own nose. And yet, he knew that the other man had to be close by. After all, Gil had been driving the car that was currently pretending to be a giant turtle upside down. **

**“ Gil...” **

** He was begging, there was no point in denying it. And yet, Gil would not answer. **

** Fear escalated into panic, pain exploded into agony and Bright bit into his lips to stop himself from screaming. He needed to reach the clasp of his seat belt, get himself free and check on his unresponsive companion.  **

** His fingers were clumsy, refusing to achieve even that simple task. He wanted to bang his head against the side of the car in frustration, but Malcolm figure that would be overkill. After all, he already felt like his brain had been put through a blender. “Gil...” **


	60. SHAME, PIRANHAS, EXPLOIT

** There was no shame in admitting that he was scared. In fact, in the purposed of full disclosure, he was scared shitless. **

** They were supposed to be just checking the warehouse, following a vague lead that carried close to no chance of actually leading somewhere. But they liked to be thorough...and he and JT had lost a bet. **

** So, it had fallen unto them to drive all the way across town to question the owner said warehouse. **

** It was a bit unclear how  ** **_ that _ ** ** had somehow turned into a bad James Bond movie. **

** Because how else was Malcolm supposed to describe the fact that he was currently naked, hanging upside down, dangling like fresh bait, over a tank filled with piranhas while the bad guys beat the crap out of JT? **

** 'Leave him alone!” the profiler yelled, squirming against the ropes securing both his hands and feet.  **

** The warehouse owner, who actually dressed like the mobster that he was, laughed. “Or what, little man? You'll make my piranhas  ** **_ choke _ ** ** on your flesh?” **

** The guy had a point. Malcolm lost track of how many punches JT had already taken and focused on the bubbling water coming closer and closer as he was lowered down. No...not bubbling. **

** There were fishes in there, climbing on top of each other, eager to reach dinner. Him. **

** Malcolm was pretty sure that fishes were not suppose to have that many teeth. It was actually fascinating as the aggressive animals fought each other for supremacy, like his nose was some delicacy that the top fish had to taste first. **

**“ Smile for the camera, little man!” the mobster called out to him, holding up his phone. “I wanna see my fishes eat out those pretty eyes!”**

**“ Fuck you!” Malcolm yelled out, because dammit! he had surpassed sacred shitless and had entered a new threshold of terror as he felt the first sprinkles of the turbulent water hit his head. **

** He was going to die, and that prick was exploiting his death for profit, just like he had done for all the other victims.  **

** This was not how Malcolm had envisioned his day going... **


	61. ZIPPED, XYROPHOBIA, ZANY

** Malcolm's hands were zipped together at the wrists, the plastic band half sunken into the swollen flesh. He hadn't really tried to break them, but every time the whip struck his back, he had no choice but to fight against his restrains, breaking skin and sinking the plastic closer to bone. **

** It should have hurt like hell, but his brain could only deal with one source of agony at a time, and right now, his back took precedence. **

** His shirt had long dissolved into tatters, each strike of the whip tearing out one more piece of fabric along with his skin. **

** By the time the whip wrapped itself around his torso for the fifteenth time, the profiler was already on his knees, barely aware of his surroundings. **

**“ Should I go on?” the killer's voice, husky and low, sounded close to his ear, making Malcolm recoil from the unwanted proximity. The man smiled, his zany personality taking joy in his prisoner's disgust.**

** There was a choice on the table. The whip or the razor. **

** Xyrophobia was one heck of a word, one that Malcolm had never thought he would be using in his life. Fear of razors. **

** But there it was. He was terrified of them. More specifically, he was terrified at the idea of picking one up and cutting into Gil. **

** His eyes searched the gaze of the older man, strapped to the metallic table. Despite the gag preventing him from voicing his thoughts, Malcolm knew that Gil was begging him to pick up the damn razor and give himself some respite from the pain. **

** Malcolm, however, couldn't do it. Like Gil, he tried to convene with his eyes how sorry he was for the words he was about to say. How ashamed he was of his cowardice. “Yes,” Bright whispered, his voice all but gone from his screams. “The whip...I chose the whip.” **


	62. MASOCHISM, ANCHOR, “LEAVE THEM ALONE!”

** He found the little girl crying in the middle of the street. Given that it was close to dawn and Malcolm was wandering aimlessly through his neighborhood because of yet another nightmare chasing him away from his own bed, his first though was that he was hallucinating. **

** He looked around, searching for anyone else, needed a third party to assure him that the crying girl was real. At that hour, however, not even stray dogs were up. **

**“ You need some help?” he found himself asking, keeping his distance. If she was real, she already looked spooked enough without having a strange man strike up a conversation with her. “Do you want me to call someone?”**

** She sniffed, looking up at his face. Her eyes were red and puffy. “They're gonna kill them,” she whispered.  **

** The resigned tone of her voice made Malcolm's stomach turn on itself. “Who? Where are they?” **

** Her hand was tiny compared to his as she grabbed his fingers and started to pull him towards a nearby ally. He heard the scuffle sounds long before turning to see five tall guys beating up two others who were curled on the ground. **

**“ Hey! Leave them alone!”**

** His voice, loud as it was, carried little weight over the cheers and insults the attackers kept raining down on the two defenseless kids on the ground. **

** Malcolm thought about his phone, still sitting by his bedside table, too far away to be of any use. “Find some help!” he yelled at the little girl even as he rushed forward. **

** Five against one were not odds that Malcolm would usually embrace. In fact, he had some trouble dealing with one on one fights. **

** But these were kids. Oversized, angry and violent kids with no training and too used to beat up others without taking a punch in return. **

** Malcolm was aiming for the shock and awe factor, like punching a shark in the nose to send him away. He pulled one of the bigger ones off the pile and threw all of his strength into his punch. **

** Bone broke under his hit, and Malcolm had no clue whether that had been his knuckles or the kid's nose. From the spurt of blood that exploded in the kid's face, he would say... both. **

**“ You fucker!” the kid yelled, grabbing his bleeding nose. The shout, however, had the opposite reaction of what Bright had been aiming for.**

** Instead of scaring the 'sharks' away, he had chummed the waters with blood. The other four dropped the unconscious kids' on the ground and moved towards him. Malcolm faith that he could deal with the situation on his own dropped like an anchor, sinking him to the bottom of the ocean. **

** Malcolm swallowed, desperately looking around for something he could use as a weapon. It might have sound masochism on his part but, right now, he would give anything to be back in bed with his nightmares. **


	63. ”JUST STAY CALM,” AIM, MAW

**“ Just stay calm,” JT worded the sentence carefully, each word laden with support and no small amount of fear. “They can sense fear, so...try to not do that.”**

** Malcolm's eyes flickered from the wild animal inches away from his face to the detective. “Any other utterly unuseful advice you wanna give me?” he whispered out the corner of his mouth. “Like 'think positive' or 'be your better self'?” **

** JT shrugged, taking a careful step back. “Just trying to be helpful, bro,” he whispered back.  **

**“ Well, you're not the one facing its opened maw, being hissed at!” Bright let out, eliciting another hiss in reply.**

**“ Want me to shoot it?” the detective offered, pulling out his gun and carefully taking aim. The animal was standing so close to Malcolm's head that the perfect shot would still singe his eyelashes.**

**“ No, I don't want you to shoot it!” Malcolm let out, even thought he *sounded* like he wanted him to. “Call Dani...or Gil! He will know how do deal with this.”**

**“ Deal with what?” the Lieutenant called out, as if summoned by Malcolm's distress.**

**“** **_ That _ ** ** ” JT explained, pointing at the picturesque painting of Malcolm, cringing, with a cat sitting on his lap. “We think it has rabies!”  **

** The older man's eyebrow rose to meet his hairline. The cat had curled on itself and was currently purring in the profiler's legs. The animal looked anything but rabid. “You're morons...the two of you,” he let out before picking the animal gently and setting him on his hold. “two grown assed men...defeated by a half starved kitten,” he tut-tutted, looking at them in shame. “I might just adopt him and keep him around the precinct, just to keep the two of you in line.” **

**“ Gil!”**

**“ Boss!”**


	64. SHREDDED

Fabric melted like butter as the killer run his sharp blade across the man's chest. Already his shirt was shredded to pieces, little beads of red flourishing along the lines. Red roses, in a garden of torn clothes.

“Stop,” the man begged, banging his head against the solid wood of the table underneath him. Tears escaped the sides of his bright blue eyes as he closed his lids against the pain. “ _Please_!”

The killer smiled, licking his lips as he started yet another line. He had already lost count on how many he had traced so far. The shirt hadn't even been his starting point, he had just moved there once the pants had no more fabric to tear up. His hand had slipped then, the blade digging a little deeper than what he intended, drawing more blood than what he had planned. It didn't matter, blood had always been an intrinsic part of his work.

It pooled against the side of the table now, staining the wood even further. It already had other stains, from before. This man was not his first. The others had begged and cried too, even if there was no point. They were his work, his art, and a canvas should not mourn losing its cleanliness to become something else, something greater.

There had been others before. And, despite the fact that the police was searching for him, this _profiler_ would not be his last.


	65. ARREST ME ALREADY!

“So, what you're saying is that the victims drank the poison with their drinks?” JT asked the profiler, taking his time in asking a question for which he was more than aware of the answer.

Malcolm, leaning against the wall, tilted his head, taking a look at the man sitting by the interrogation room's metal table. His face was red and covered in sweat, bulging eyes flickering between the two of them and the table top. “Oh, it was more than that... the killer actually dripped it on the straws, so the effect wouldn't be disrupted by alcohol,” he pointed out, despite the fact that both of them had already discuss the matter at length. “It was pretty smart, if you think about it,” he said, looking up as if he was actually _thinking_ about it.

“Are you _shitting_ me?!” the man on the table screamed, spreading spit all over the table. “You can't do this!”

JT's eyebrow shot upwards as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “We're not doing anything,” he pointed out, looking in confusion at the shorter man by his side. “Bright, are we doing anything?”

Malcolm's lips turned downwards, his face a mask of pure confusion. “Not a thing...do you need something from us, Jervis? Because, otherwise, I'll just be here chatting with my partner,” Malcolm added, ignoring the look from JT that said ' _don't push it!'_

“This is _torture_! You can't do this!” he screamed, veins bulging in his neck as he tried to lean away as far as he could from the snake slithering across the table, venturing closer and closer to his cuffed hands. “I did it, okay? I killed them! I confess! Just arrest me already!”

Malcolm winked, sharing a look with JT. Pushing away from the wall, he carefully picked the snake from the table, smiling as she automatically coiled her tail around his wrist. “Don't tell me you're afraid of Toothless here?” he let out, waving the snake's head closer to Jarvis' nose. The man practically dissolved into panic, shrinking away. “She's armless...and poison free,” he added. “Unlike the ones we found in your apartment. Look at her...she just wants to cuddle!”

“You're crazy! Get me out of here!”


	66. TWIST, KNUCKLE, “OOF!”

**“ Starting the Y incision at the right--” Edrisa dropped the recording device as a muffled “Oof!” reached her ears...and the official autopsy recording of one Jane Doe. Intrigued by the silence that followed, the pathologist set the device down before moving to investigate. She would have left the sharp scalpel on the table as well, but recent developments had taught her that the morgue wasn't always dead-quiet. Or safe. Instead, she held on to it tighter, knuckles turning white at the stress she was putting on the metal.**

** Of all the things that she expected to find, a mop of hair sitting between two sprawled legs was not at the top of her list. Or on her list, for that matter. **

** She recognized the tangled mess of brown locks as belonging to the resident profiler almost immediately. “Bright!” she let out with a smile almost as shiny as the man's name. “What are you doing down here? I don't have a case for you...” there was no denying the joy in her voice that, despite having nothing juicy for him, the profiler had still come. “Why are you sitting on the floor like that?”  **

** Malcolm looked up, that endearing deer-in-the-headlights look on his blue eyes. Edrisa might have sighed, but she would never admit it. “I fell?” he said, looking slightly confused with his current position as well. “I think I might've twisted my ankle,” he confessed, leaned forward again to grab at the offended joint. “Think you can call Gil to get me upstairs?” **

** The petit woman puffed. “Nonsense!” she announced, tossing the blade away and snapping the gloves off her hands. “I'll help you!” **

** Bright might have looked slightly panicked at the perspective, but Edrisa chose to ignore that. It wasn't like she wasn't used to lift much heavier corpses in her table. Snugging in beneath his shoulder, Edrisa looked at Malcolm's face. She blinked, momentary lost on the smoothness of his skin.  **

**“ Edrisa?”**

**“ Arggh... yes! Up! On three!” she let out, looking anywhere but at the man at her side. It was far too distracting. “One... two...”**


End file.
